OC HIGH / STUDENT NEWS & VIEWS : my turn : Student Exchanges Views in Japan

For six weeks during the summer I lived with a Japanese host family as a Youth for Understanding foreign exchange student. My stay in Japan was truly a remarkable experience. Not only did I discover a new country and embrace a new culture, but I also found a second family to love and cherish.

However, my trip did not go quite as I had expected.

I embarked on this adventure with high hopes, expecting to have an exciting time while learning about this powerful nation and its population renowned for politeness. The Japanese culture fascinated me, and I wanted to gain insight into it.

I immediately immersed myself in my new life, asking a million questions about a million different things and watching how my Japanese host family did everything: eat, sleep, read, talk and just about anything else. I tried to observe how the Japanese acted in every possible situation, for I had the goal of discovering what a Japanese person was really like inside.

For the first two weeks, I thought I was learning a lot. I learned my host family’s daily routine, explored the lush green countryside and tried desperately to learn some Japanese. In fact, I felt like I was settling into my new life.

By the third week, however, I felt homesick and thoroughly tired of this alien place with its alien concepts. I was isolated and alone in a world of strangers with a strange language.

I was disappointed in myself, in YFU and especially in Japan. At my host sister’s high school, I would sit motionless in a stiff wooden chair for hours, unable to participate or even communicate with my classmates. At home, I felt like an awkward guest who was merely disrupting a smoothly run household instead of joining it.

My dreams of having a rewarding experience were washing away with the relentless downpour of the summer rains. I was only experiencing one thing: boredom.

It took me until the fourth week to realize that I wasn’t bored; instead, my ailment was culture shock. I had come to Japan with expectations of what a wonderful time I would have. But reality had shattered my illusions. I had discovered a world totally different from anything I had ever imagined. I began to realize that Japan was just another nation possessing particular singularities and quirks. It would be impossible to expect to fully understand a whole country in just a few short weeks. Japan, like every other country in this world, had its own set of rules and customs.

I also began to realize that I could not expect to learn what a Japanese person was really like inside, because there existed no “Japanese person” whom I could observe. Every person I met was different and unique, with his or her own special individuality. The Japanese people are as different in personality and character as their American counterparts.

After I came upon these revelations, I started to accept Japan for itself and not for a country that had not lived up to my expectations. I finally stopped pressuring myself to fully understand Japan, because I knew it was an impossible task that I had set for myself. I began to relax and enjoy myself in my new environment, and instead of sitting around waiting for things to happen, I found there were a number of fun things to do that I had initially overlooked.

Not until I came back to the United States did I realize how much progress in my quest I had truly made in those last few days. I had learned more about the Japanese culture and people than in all the early weeks combined.

I had finally been able to observe my Japanese friends without constantly comparing them to the American stereotypes I had unwittingly brought with me on this journey. I had finally been able to accept my host family for who they genuinely were, not as a generic Japanese family.

I came to see the Japanese not as the toiling robots or the meek housewives portrayed in the American media, but as real human beings.